Chicago Planetarium’s $3M “Overhead Projector”

Adler Planetarium in Chicago took a hit during last night’s presidential debate when Sen. John McCain derided a $3-million earmark that Sen. Barack Obama had requested last year to replace the facility’s 40-year-old projector.

McCain repeatedly called the requested equipment an "overhead projector" which brings to mind the simple light projector your junior-high geometry teacher used to display transparencies. But the Zeiss planetarium projector Adler has its eye on is no simple teaching aid.

The 78-year-old planetarium’s current system weighs more than a ton, is around ten feet long and is capable of projecting over 4,500 stars on a 360 degree planetarium dome. Adler installed its first Zeiss projector in 1930 when the museum opened as the only planetarium in the western hemisphere. It upgraded a newer model in 1969, when humans first landed on the moon.

Still, Adler is one of the premier science education facilities in the country. It helped turn a generation onto space, and today it hosts over 400,000 school children and visitors every year. Of the many earmarks clearly listed on Senator Obama’s website in the name of transparency, I find it interesting that McCain’s people picked a science center as the best example they could find of egregious spending.

Despite the context, maybe being mentioned in a presidential debate isn’t all bad. It put the Adler planetarium on the map for many people who had never heard of it, which could result in a higher turnout for NASA’s Future Forum there on Oct. 10.